Magic lantern pose slide showing a woman in English dress

Magic lantern pose slide showing a woman in English dress, holding a basket, standing in front of a thatched cottage. The background image is photographic and hand coloured, the figure in the foreground is hand drawn and coloured.

Pose slides were magic lantern slides which contained painted scenes designed to be projected onto large, flat, white screens in the traditional way. They often depicted familiar foreign landmarks or exotic destinations. However, each slide had a central figure represented in costume only, without the facial features, arms or legs of a person These human elements elements were provided by the pose artist, who stood on a white plinth on an exact spot on stage to fill the space on the slide projection.